miamiherald.com
Wednesday, 11.25.09
BY DAVID R. COLBURN and BRIAN DASSLER
colburn@aa.ufl.edu
Ten years ago in November 1999, then-Gov. Jeb Bush issued his ``One Florida'' initiative to eliminate affirmative action in state contracting and in admissions at the state universities.
His decision was a direct response to an anti-affirmative action campaign being led in Florida by Ward Connerly, former University of California regent and national spokesman for the effort to eliminate affirmative action.
Although in general sympathy with Connerly's campaign, Bush worried that Connerly's constitutional proposal would sharply divide Floridians, create substantial problems for his leadership and disrupt his efforts to woo African-American and Hispanic voters to the Republican Party -- votes he hoped would secure his brother the presidency in 2000.
The governor had reason to fear the effect of a constitutional amendment or court ruling. In California, Proposition 209 prohibited public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race, sex or ethnicity and gave educational leaders very little flexibility in addressing diversity issues in undergraduate admissions.
Similarly, a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that affirmative action was unconstitutional (Hopwood v. Texas) narrowly limited the ability of public colleges and universities in Texas to use race as a condition of admission. These two decisions significantly set back racial and ethnic diversity at major universities in both California and Texas.
To avoid a similar outcome in Florida, Bush proposed a ``Talented 20'' program as part of his One Florida order, which guaranteed university admission to the top 20 percent of students from each public high school. The Talented 20 program was modeled after the ``Ten Percent Plan'' in Texas and was calculated to mitigate the effects of One Florida on ethnic and racial diversity in state universities.
Full Story: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/1350688.html
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